The WELL: deadsongs.vue.30: Brown Eyed Womenhttp://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page01.html
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http://www.well.com/images/bluelogo144x60.gifThe WELL: deadsongs.vue.30: Brown Eyed Womenhttp://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page01.html
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#69: Brett Wilbur (silentscream) Fri 19 Jul 13 19:52
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post69
I am wary of interpreting any song in a way that others may find
appealing or appalling. We all have our own inner worlds that we build
up with memory and belief and faith. But I love this song and have
spent many days dreaming in the sunshine about what it means. So here
is a stab at it, take it for what it*s worth. All of which is only my
opinion, and I tend to humanize or anthropomorphize the lyrics into
visual images. It*s a curse, I could f*** it up for everyone. OR, I
could be totally off base. Just trying to add to the conversation.<br /><br />Anyway, I think this is a song about growing old; it is a song about
mortality. Time stretches out in the song, both musically and
lyrically. Could be a reference to Jerry*s father, but doesn*t imply
any quickness of death, just a passage of time. It does begin with
&quot;gone are the days&quot; which emphasizes the past, days gone by. This sets
the melancholy tone for a reversal of time, a glance to the past. A
glance that while you are looking backward, the future approaches. Few
plow their fields with oxen anymore, maybe some, but not most. Even
the oxen have gotten old. I*m not a musician but if you could trace a
sequence of chords or notes going forward and backward at the same time
I wouldn*t be surprised.<br /><br />Now this dude, Jack Jones, fell on hard times, the wall falling down I
think to mean Wall Street and the age of depression. But perhaps too
it means his own surficial walls collapsed and he became vulnerable.<br /><br />On a side note, Jack Jones, the real one, made popular a song by Don
Rollins in 1965, called The Race is On, perhaps another reference to
growing old, just as does the line &quot;and it looks like the old man's
getting on.&quot;<br /><br />No, I can't find any connection between a real Jack Jones and a
Delilah Jones, who we are to assume are married or related somehow, but
there is a Delilah Jones who was a burlesque dancer in the late 50's
and 60's. Can't tell if she had any kids. The narrator must be one of
her children.<br /><br />Now moving on, of course, the line *the bottle was dusty but the
liquor was clean* IMO, refers again to the aging of the body while the
inner soul stays clear and strong. Actually ripens with time.
Premonition for the later Whiskey in the Jar cover.<br /><br />Bigfoot County, as &lt;masonskids&gt; mentioned (#55), you can read about
the myth at www.bigfootcounty.com. I believe this is a state of mind.
It is both in California, and somewhere in Texas, but most likely in
the Appalachians where the stills are still running today. Who knows,
maybe it is a reference to Stephen Stills. But it is a lyrical hook,
no doubt, because* the tumbled down shack* is an obvious reference to
the aging body as I see it, and that it *snowed so hard the roof caved
in* is a literal metaphor for the aging mind succumbing to external
(social, physical) pressure.<br /><br />OK, here is where I get trippy. I have always believed that RH was
writing specifically to Jerry. So all songs are written to him, though
Jerry sang them verbatim. Which makes it seem like Jerry is singing
to someone else, or duh, us, the audience, or we personalize it and
relate it to our life and project it on someone else. No one could have
written such deep and meaningful words without directing them towards
someone real. It shows the depth of Hunters love and respect, I think.<br /><br />As far as the line *sound of the thunder with the rain pouring down*
is Phil and Bobby beating the shit out of it. And, therefore, I think
Jerry was the lightning, Phil was the thunder, and Bobby was the rain
and snow. Check it out. Check it out across the board. *If the
thunder doesn*t get you then the lightning will.*
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Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:52:00 PDT
#68: Alex Allan (alexallan) Tue 16 Jul 13 10:48
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post68
On 2 November 1998, Robert Hunter sang some additional verses that
expand the story - they focus it more on the narrator and the family.
Unfortunately, the recording (on archive.org) has so much audience
noise that the lyrics are very hard to make out. But as best as I can
decipher them:<br /><br />[?] my older brother, his name was Ben
My sister died at the age of ten
We followed up to the burying ground
Was the first time Daddy's tears hit the ground<br /><br />First came school, and then came the law
[...] and the wall [...]
But I grew up just a little too slow
I moved over into Arkansas<br /><br />When I went back it was twenty years' later
[?]
[?]
Tears were falling at the place again<br /><br />Interesting, but I prefer the starkness and simplicity of the lyrics
we know.
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Tue, 16 Jul 2013 10:48:00 PDT
#67: coal will turn to gray (comet) Mon 15 Jul 13 22:55
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post67
This is one of the songs that rattles around in my brain in my
advancing dotage. <br /><br />&quot;Gone are the days when the ox fall down,
pick up the yoke and plow the fields around.&quot;<br /><br />This is a song for the ages.<br /><br />&quot;The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.&quot;
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Mon, 15 Jul 2013 22:55:00 PDT
#66: perry rice (perryrice) Mon 15 Jul 13 13:34
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post66
contradiction? Good whiskey is supposed to make your nerves crackle
some on the way down.
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Mon, 15 Jul 2013 13:34:00 PDT
#65: Steve Biederman (sbied) Mon 15 Jul 13 13:30
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post65
I've wondered, did RH intentionally imply that the narrator is seeing
through rose-colored glasses when he says &quot;and he made it well&quot;, when
the next line contradicts it with &quot;and it burned like hell&quot;, or did he
just accept the good rhyme and not think about the contradiction?
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Mon, 15 Jul 2013 13:30:00 PDT
#64: David Dodd (ddodd) Mon 15 Jul 13 11:22
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post64
Posted on behalf of Chris Hardman:<br /><br />I've been wondering about Hunter's selection of red grenadine in the
chorus of this song. It scans beautifully, of course - which may be
reason enough - but it is a relatively sophisticated drink compared to
the moonshine and rotgut elsewhere in the song.<br /><br />Grenadine was originally made from pomegranate juice, sugar and water
(although now often a cocktail of chemical flavourings). The
pomegranate was seen as a symbol of fecundity and bounty by many
cultures and religions - Delilah had at least eight kids - and the
ancient Greeks considered them the fruit of the dead.
I find it easy to believe Hunter was fully aware of both these facts
when he wrote the lyrics.<br /><br />[and further, via a second email]:<br /><br />The reason for my cogitation was that I nominated it as a 'Song About
Whisk(e)y' on the Guardian newspaper's weekly Readers Recommend blog
this week. I've always thought of it as (just!) another exquisite
Hunter tale of American domestic tragedy with Delilah's death at its
heart (a view bolstered by the Garcia/Hunter custom of the bridge being
the kernel of the song). But it may be more about the role of drink in
American domestic tragedy, with a Hogarthian flavour, the timeframe of
which is defined so perfectly in Hunter's second verse:<br /><br />Nineteen twenty when he stepped to the bar
Drank to the dregs of the whiskey jar
Nineteen thirty when the Wall caved in
He made his way selling red-eyed gin<br /><br />Each of these two couplets defines, in sequence: the decade, the
economic/social situation and what Jack was up to (stated in terms of
the quality of alcohol involved). Before this verse/time, Jack worked
the fields and attracted the ladies; after it, his life's work is as a
professional hooch-maker. In the meantime, his family has been
destroyed (literally, in Delilah's case). All Jack has left to do is
get old.<br /><br />As so often happens, the more you look at Hunter lyrics, the more you
hear and see. Whether any of this was actually in his head at the time
he wrote them, well....<br /><br />Regards<br /><br />Chris
PS. I'm sure there's more to the chorus, too, but I can't bottom it.
The liquor inside the bottle is good and clean (like brown-eyed
Delilah, the personification of 'red grenadine'?) but the outside is
dirty and troubled by storms (like Jack?). And the first couplet is so
strong and the second so weak; another Delilah/Jack female/male
comparison....? C.
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Mon, 15 Jul 2013 11:22:00 PDT
#63: Tim Lynch (masonskids) Fri 7 Jun 13 12:22
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post63
That is funny, thanks!!!
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Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:22:00 PDT
#62: David Dodd (ddodd) Fri 7 Jun 13 10:32
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post62
My deadnet blog post for this week is about &quot;Brown-Eyed Women.&quot; I
always the love the conversation that ensues in the comments on these
posts....
http://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-brown-eyed-women<br /><br />Also, found a very fun video on YouTube of a guy covering the song,
with an intro that just cracked me up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us38e9hrick
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Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:32:00 PDT
#61: David Dodd (ddodd) Thu 13 Jan 11 15:23
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post61
Yeah! Fun how this stuff keeps piling up... Billy Collins has a
wonderful poem about how the work of poets will only be complete when
everything in the world has been compared to everything else in the
world, which always makes me think of the line &quot;I have spent my life
seeking all that's still unsung...&quot;
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Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:23:00 PST
#60: Robin Russell (rrussell8) Wed 12 Jan 11 22:47
http://www.well.com/conf/deadsongs.vue/topics/30/Brown-Eyed-Women-page03.html#post60
Wow!<br /><br />From TCM on The Man With the Golden Arm, 1955, Otto Preminger Producer
/ Director, starring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak:<br /><br />The film's score, which was Elmer Bernstein's first jazz score, became
a best-selling soundtrack record and is considered by many sources to
be one of the most important film scores of the 1950s. The McGuire
Sisters released a vocal version of the distinctive main theme, called
&quot;Delilah Jones,&quot; with lyrics by Sylvia Fine.
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Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:47:00 PST